Urban Development and Farm Labor Scarcity: Are Workers Leaving Agriculture for Construction?
The United States has faced a shortage of farmworkers for several decades. In areas of the country that grow labor intensive crops, the lack of a reliable supply of agricultural workers is one of the main concerns among farmers. The reduction in the availability of...
What is the Expected Impact of High Commodity Prices on Effective Reference Prices for Covered Commodities
Commodity reference prices are used in both the price loss coverage (PLC) and agriculture risk coverage (ARC) programs to calculate program benefits. For most commodities, reference prices have not increased since their establishment in the 2014 Farm...
Enterprise Budgeting
Enterprise budgets are a helpful tool for organizing and understanding what production costs are for the coming year. Producers can use enterprise budgets to examine their farm by crop, variety, irrigation, tillage, or any other production practice. The more specific...
Fed Cattle Prices Jump Higher
Fed cattle prices in the Southern Plains jumped a few more dollars per cwt last week to get to $154.71 per cwt. That was almost $20 per cwt higher than the summer low. Prices were also the highest since Spring 2015 and the highest for the first...
Looking Ahead to the 2023 Cotton Market
For planning purposes, it is never too early to think about next season’s opportunities and risks. To start with, we’re still not settled on the size of the 2022 cotton crop. USDA forecasted the latter back in May at over 16 million bales, and their...
The Potential Implications of Large-Scale Solar Development: A Case Study on Maryland’s Agricultural Industry
Maryland has the most significant solar, specific carve-out of any state at 14.5% energy generation sales by 2028 (1) - the majority of which will be produced through utility-scale solar operations. Utility-scale solar is a solar energy generating system that sells...
China Emerges as a Leading Destination for U.S. Beef Exports
China's demand for beef is breaking records and imports have increased to unprecedented levels in recent years. Since 2010, Chinese beef imports (carcasses and muscle cuts) increased from less than $100 million to nearly $12.5 billion by 2021 (14,000% increase),...
Current Non-Real Estate Farm Debt
Through 2022, the ag sector in the Southern Ag Today (SAT) states has sustained periods of drought, volatile prices in respective markets, and interest rate hikes. As mentioned in a previous article (Martinez and Ferguson 2022), it is crucial to know where agriculture...
High Hog and Pork Prices This Year
We have been negligent here at Southern Ag Today in not adequately covering the hog and pork market, but today we are going to make up a little for that oversight. Southern states had about 19 percent of the U.S. breeding hog inventory on December 1, 2021. USDA’s...
Risk Management Considerations for the 2023 Growing Season
The risk faced by producers in the 2022 growing season was unprecedented. As farmers were in the field preparing to plant their crop, Russia invaded Ukraine fueling uncertainty across the world and in agricultural input markets. A few months later, rain fell across...
Conservation Easements: Subdivision Considerations in Farm Succession Planning
Agricultural conservation easements (ACES) - given their perpetual and restrictive nature - are considered the best tool for protecting valuable agricultural soils from non-farm residential and commercial development. While ACES are also considered helpful in farm...
Fall vs. Spring Application of Broiler Litter
While some states across the southern region have strict environmental regulations on applying broiler litter to farmland, other states can apply year-round. Fall application of litter is a common practice by some producers due to wet soil conditions in the Spring,...
Exceptional Cow and Heifer Slaughter
We are approaching the end of 2022 and are getting a more complete picture of beef cow and heifer slaughter and its implications for future supplies. Through October, heifer slaughter is up about 5 percent (402k head) and beef cow slaughter is up 13 percent (375k...
What Does Trendline Yield Tell Us About How Corn Futures Prices React During and After the Production Year?
Producers face the challenge of when to sell or manage price risk during the growing season. Each growing season is different, but part of marketing and risk management is examining past data to improve the likelihood of making a decision that will increase the...
Potential Class Action Filed Claiming Poultry Growers are Employees
Over the past few months, two potential class action lawsuits have been filed in South Carolina and Georgia by former poultry growers for Amick Farms and Perdue Farms, claiming that growers are not independent contractors as stated in their contracts but...
Barge Traffic Restrictions on the Mississippi River and Bulk Agricultural Exports
The Mississippi River provides the United States with a competitive advantage in the export of bulk agricultural commodities. This advantage in transportation costs allows U.S. commodities, including corn and soybeans, to better compete for market share...
Using Seasonal Precipitation Outlook Maps in PRF Planning
The deadline for Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage (PRF) signup on December 1st is coming up quickly. Whether you’ve had plenty of rain this year or are in a severe drought, it’s worth visiting with your crop insurance agent to review your PRF coverage. You may know...
Retail Beef Prices Lower, Pork Higher
Beef, pork, and chicken prices are included in the consumer price index (CPI) released monthly. Last week’s October CPI indicated meat prices going in opposite directions. Two average retail beef prices are reported: Choice beef and the All Fresh...
Considerations for Developing a Pre-Harvest Marketing Plan
The upcoming winter months provide an opportunity for row crop producers to review their marketing plans. A marketing plan is a valuable tool that helps producers manage emotions when making marketing decisions. A marketing plan is an outline of price, date, and...
Fresh Tomato Supply Chain: Challenges in Production & Marketing
Growers in Florida and California, where the majority of fresh tomatoes are grown in the U.S., continue to lose market share to Mexico (due in part to relatively higher U.S. farm labor wages and overlapping seasonal production) and Canada (greenhouse production),...
Correspondence of Rice Planted Acres to Safety Net Prices
Over the past five years, the federal crop insurance program has become a more important part of the farm safety net – relative to ARC/PLC and the marketing loan. There are several reasons for this, but the two most important are 1) higher commodity prices...
What Should We Expect for Farm Loan Interest Rates in 2022 & 2023?
Rising input and labor costs have already created significant concerns for agricultural producers today. One of the major causes of rising costs is the high inflation rate which now stands at the highest level in the last four decades. Among some of the options...
Beef Cow Slaughter Ramps Up
Typically, beef cow culling peaks, nationally, during the last few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving. The rapid pace of cow culling was documented in SAT back in early September, focusing on the South. At that time, there was some hope that the...
Who’s Buying U.S. Peanuts?
The U.S. has been the world’s fourth-largest peanut producer over the past five years, averaging 3.1 million tons produced annually. Over that time, the U.S. has exported over one-fifth of its total produced peanuts, making it the third-highest exporter of peanuts...
A Legacy of Cooperative Leadership
2022 marks the 100th anniversary of the Capper-Volstead Act, which gives farmers and ranchers the legal right to join together in cooperative associations. The founders of the first agricultural cooperatives held strong convictions and above all else, loyalty to...
U.S. Pecan Trade
The United States is a world leader in pecan production totaling an estimated 115 thousand metric tons (TMT). Georgia led the country with over 40 TMT of pecans grown, despite production being 26.7 TMT lower than the previous year. New Mexico ranked closely behind...
Year-End Tax Preparations & Management
Most farmers right now are not thinking about taxes, let alone tax management. Many are still harvesting crops and beginning to think about the next season, but it is also time to start the office work and meet with your tax professional. A November or...
Small Grain Pastures
Wheat and other small grain grazing is an important source of demand for calves every Fall. Fewer cattle will likely be grazing on small grain pastures this Winter due to poor plant establishment caused by drought. The January 2022 USDA-NASS Cattle...
Low Water Levels in the Mississippi River Result in Abnormally Weak Soybean Basis
Low water levels in the Mississippi River have caused grain barge rates to increase, which causes grain buyers at local grain elevators to reduce their bids for grain delivered. When water levels drop in the marine highway system, barge drafts are reduced (U.S. Army...
Insurance Plans for Specialty Crops
Producers face production and marketing risks that could affect the operation’s financial performance every growing season. Developing strategies to mitigate such risk is essential for the health of the operation. USDA offers a number of programs to insure specialty...
An Early Look at the Farm Safety Net for Cotton in 2023
From wild swings in commodity prices to an explosion in input costs that would make the Consumer Price Index (CPI) blush, agricultural producers have been riding a rollercoaster over the past year. The purpose of the farm safety net – the combination of...
Loan Packaging Terms for Beginning Minority Farmers Under More Objective Lender’s Loan Evaluation Models
After decades of litigation and settlements of lawsuits alleging discriminatory lending decisions, lenders have learned valuable lessons to increasingly “objectify” their loan decision-making procedures. The resulting “more objective” loan evaluation models...
It’s Turkey Time!
It’s the season to think about turkey prices as the birds will start showing up in our grocery store meat cases in the next couple of weeks. Last year, at this time, turkey prices were record high. Prices have set new record highs this year...
Fences Aren’t Just for Cattle
While the 2022 harvest season is not complete, it is a good time for producers to consider price risk management strategies for the 2023 crop. Agricultural commodities have a tremendous amount of uncertainty due to global and U.S. economic weakness, elevated input...
Immediate Relief for Financially Distressed FSA Farm Loan Borrowers
On October 18, 2022, USDA announced the implementation of Section 22006 of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The Act provides up to $3.1 Billion in funding to the Secretary of Agriculture to provide payments for the cost of loans or loan modifications for...